Mark 11:25-26 
‘And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any:  that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.   26 But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses’.

DAILY READING Acts 9:26-43; Joshua 5:2-6:27; Job 23

On April 6, 1994, the president of Rwanda’s plane was shot down over the capital city of Kigali. This assassination of the Hutu president sparked months of massacres of Tutsi tribe members by the Hutus, throughout the country. As friends and neighbors turned against each other, over one million people were killed in the genocide. 

At this time, a young girl, Immaculee Ilibagiza was home on Easter break from the National University of Rwanda, where she had been studying. As gangs of Hutus went house to house slaughtering men, women and children, to protect his only daughter, from the marauding gangs high on drugs and liquor,  Ilibagiza’s father sent her to the home of a local pastor, a Hutu man. This pastor took her in and sheltered her, along with  seven other women in a hidden 3-by-4 foot bathroom. For  three months, these women huddled silently, taking turns sitting, eating only when it was safe for food to be delivered, and flushing the toilet only when the toilet in the house’s other bathroom was flushed.

 Outside the house genocide raged around them, even as killers searched fruitlessly for her. But even in the midst the horror, Immaculee, a Christian, said she strongly felt God’s Presence. Often, she said, God will reveal things to her, such as the time He told her to have the pastor move a wardrobe in front of the  bathroom’s door to conceal it. Though the pastor hesitated, he later conceded. And not long after that, the  killers came again to search the house. Because of the wardrobe they could not see the bathroom door and so walked past  without noticing  the bathroom. 

After hiding in the bathroom for 91 days, she came out of hiding to discover that her parents and 2 brothers had been massacred. The only other survivor was her brother who had been studying in Senegal. Despite her deep hurt and pain, she realized she had to obey God’s command to forgive. In her book ‘left to tell’, she recounts later tracing one of the killers to prison and telling him she forgave him. With that forgiveness she found that she stopped having nightmares about the war. 

She later relocated to the U.S where she got married and began a new family. And today she travels the world teaching about the power of forgiveness. 

Mark 11:25-26 says ‘And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any:  that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses’.

There is indeed power in forgiveness. When God asks us to forgive, it is actually for our own benefit, because the person who suffers most is the one who does not forgive. 

People can do hurtful things, they can betray you, lie against you,  hurt you emotionally even physically, But If you keep holding on to what someone did to you, you allow their evil to live on in your heart, thereby poisoning your system. Medically it has been discovered that unforgiveness is one of the major causes of terminal illness. In fact in medical books unforgiveness is classified as a disease on its own. Doctors say harboring unforgiveness creates a state of chronic anxiety which produces excess adrenaline and cortisol, which hinders the body’s immune system. So carrying unforgiveness is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. It’s actually you who is hurting. In Mathew 18:35 Jesus said we should forgive from our hearts those who have hurt us.  The truth is that in letting go of those you are holding in your heart, you are actually setting yourself free. 
PRAYER: Lord, please help me to be able to let go of hurts and pains, to forgive others just as You have forgiven me. May I never hold unforgiveness or grudges in my heart, grant me the grace to always forgive freely and  love freely in Jesus Name. .   

QUOTE 

The tests you are going through in life today is not for your destruction, it is for your testimony.. WORDBITE 222. 

 [ADAPTED FROM THE BOOK FAITH CLASSICS]